Untold stories in Deep East Texas

Driving through deep east Texas, you get the feeling that the storm happened last week, not last month. Piles of downed trees and metal roof debris litter every street. I've covered a lot of hurricanes, and you become used to seeing that sort of thing a couple of days, or even a few weeks later. Just to the east of Orange, on the north side of Interstate 10, is a pile of tree litter and debris. It's a mile long, and almost 50 feet high. You can see from the highway there's room for it to grow, and trucks are lined up, filled to the top, to add to the pile.

There has been so little coverage of these places, towns like Orange, Deweyville, Bridge City, Vidor, that you forget a major hurricane whipped through here. We stopped to fill up at a gas station outside of Deweyville. The pumps are working, but there are no covers for them, and the awning that was once covering half of the pumps sits on the ground in a corner of the parking lot. The manager says he and his son dragged it there after the storm, and it will probably sit there until spring. The clean-up crews, he explains, are too busy with other material, and he can't afford to pay someone to come and get it.